YOLO: Deciding to take a last minute family vacation!

If you know our family well, you know we love to travel.

And not just the two of us, but our full family of six! This week we took the idea of booking a last minute family vacation to new limits! We originally had a cruise scheduled in early January but due to work events and schedule changes, we had to cancel it. We had not been on family vacation since our summer trip to Flagstaff, AZ and didn’t have anything solid on the books. Add in a dreary December and I was in a bit of a funk. Rob is normally the well, normal one in our relationship and even he was itching to go get lost together.

I stumbled across a great deal on a trip to one of our favorite places with a week-long stay at Wyndham Bonnet Creek on Walt Disney World property. It was a 2 bedroom unit and priced out at $900 for the week. With our family of SIX, we are constantly limited to where we can stay at a reasonable price. We were seriously considering pulling the trigger when we started double checking dates and womp womp womp…Rob had drill. As we looked into other weeks available either he or I had work obligations, posh travel, drill weekend or the prices started skyrocketing the closer we got to Spring Break. Around noon on Friday, he threw it out there, what if we just go now? Insert nervous laughter from yours truly. “I am sorry what?”

Rob is not the spontaneous one in our life…pretty much ever.

As we sat and discussed we realized we didn’t really have any real reasons we couldn’t go over the next week. So Friday at noon I started pricing out options for the next week. I was also running a HUGE sale for my VIP Customers and taking care of their invoices and beginning the process of preparing to pull their orders. This also gave us extra cash on hand to make a SUPER last minute adventure a reality.

Finally, around 1 PM I started seriously looking and double checking our weekly schedule. We first checked into Shades of Green which would allow us to stay on Disney property but at a much more affordable price. We were stoked to find a room for $125 night and it was available! However, when I called I was informed there was a STRICT 5 person limit in the room. We would either need 2 rooms and double the price from $500 to $1000 or a family suite which wasn’t even available.

While searching and on a total whim, I saw the campgrounds at Fort Wilderness on WDW property.

I priced them out and for the rock-bottom price of $67 night, we could camp at Disney World. Now don’t get it twisted…I am not a tent camper. It’s just a LOT of work. However, we have a pop-up camper thanks to my awesome parents who gifted it to us when they upgraded and it was sitting right here just begging to be used. Rob reminded me that all we really do at Disney is SLEEP in our room. We are generally up early and on the go. And so Friday around 2:00 pm I pulled the trigger and booked a tent/pop up site for 5 nights, Monday-Friday at Fort Wilderness Campground…all the while still nervously laughing at the insanity of this last minute vacay!

Next up, how to prep, pack and get on the road in less than 24 hours. See ya real soon!